plof27
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Post by plof27 on Dec 25, 2014 23:28:23 GMT
Ok, so my friend and I are designing a SciFi RPG in a fit of high school hubris and vanity. Anyway, I was planning on the system being both simple enough for new players to pick up and learn quickly, but also have enough depth to keep seasoned players interested in the game. For example, I want character generation to be quick and easy, but I wanted fairly tactical combat. Is it possible to accomplish this without the game becoming unfocused? Is this a reasonable goal? Thoughts?
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Post by Sheena on Dec 27, 2014 5:16:36 GMT
I've run into a lot of the same issues with creating my own systems. What I've found is that you should keep stats and attributes derived from stats fairly light to keep the game interesting and not bogged-down in constant checking of the character sheet. Some good places to look for good, streamlined ruleset inspo would be later editions of D&D, especially 5E, and games like Skyrim, which managed to provide an RPG experience completely without stats. Good luck to you, that sounds like a sweet idea, post your progress on here if you'd like! I'd love to see it!
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stlaughter
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Post by stlaughter on Dec 28, 2014 23:09:32 GMT
It's a difficult proposition! A system that has easy character creation generally lacks the stats for in-depth tactical combat, BUT there might be a way around it.
Usually, it's on a spectrum. Making it easy and newbie-friendly makes it less tactical and complex; after all, where are the pins to hang the bigger system on? But the opposite is a problem as well; make the system too intricate and complicated, and new players won't play it, intimidated by the large learning cliff.
Yet, it does not have to be this way. One possibility is to move away from D&D styled combat, where there are relatively few actions in combat, and more towards a Dark Heresy/Deathwatch sort of system, where there are a multitude of actions in combat any character can attempt regardless of abilities or class.
Then you keep character generation simple. Have a long list of actions possible in combat- perhaps an Aim ability, Called Shots, the ability to raise defense in some way (a Shield action?), a way to preemptively Dodge, etc.- but maintain simple character generation. Maybe many actions in combat are not related to a character's stats, but are simple chance rolls modified only by perks?
This way, character generation is simple, but a wide variety of combat tactics are possible.
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